Saucony working on first Made in America athletic shoe
17/07/2014
A potential change to the Berry Amendment, in which the military might soon have to source domestically produced athletic shoes, looks set to benefit the Wolverine Worldwide-owned brand as well as peer New Balance, which makes a quarter of its shoes in the US.
The ruling stipulates that all components must come from the US; however, there are few athletic component makers on US soil.
“As a group, we were not campaigning for a change in the language of the Berry Amendment,” Andrew Fowler, director of operations for Wolverine-owned Bates, which has supplied to the military for 100 years, told sportstextiles.com.
“The amendment clearly states that certain categories of products are to be provided against that threshold of Made in the USA 100%. What we’ve demonstrated is that the US, from an industrial footwear making perspective, is fully capable of producing Berry-compliant athletic shoes.”
He expects the shoes will be ready by the end of this calendar year.
See the July/August issue of WSA, published next week, for more on the story.
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